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2007 CORING SURVEY
PROJECT
Supervisors: Thijs Nales and Robert Vander Poppen
Thijs Nales (left) and
Robert Vander Poppen (right) in the field
with Kathleen Loyd Lambert, Emma Johnson, and Hilary Serra
Opening
Report:
This year for the
first time at Poggio Colla the field school students have the
opportunity to participate in a survey project geared at exploring
the context of our settlement in its larger landscape. The survey
is planned as a multi-season project that will first concentrate
on determining the archaeological potential of the areas immediately
bordering the settlement. These areas on the lower slopes of
Poggio Colla present a challenge for traditional survey methods
due to the thick woodland cover of the immediate environs of
the site, making it nearly impossible to use field-walking, a
technique that examines archaeological features from their remains
in plowed fields. As a result, we are surveying the hilltop using
the technique of coring. Across the hilltop the students are
taking core samples on a 20 x 25 meter grid using a gauge and
an auger. The gauge is driven into the earth providing a clear
picture of the layers of soil, and allowing us to look for preserved
archaeological surfaces buried under later material eroded from
the hilltop. When archaeological soils are found in the gauge,
a second tool, the auger, is used to create a 10 centimeter diameter
sample of the soil in order to secure material that can help
us date the archaeological layers involved.
Coring
Survey team at work in the Poggio Colla woods,
led by Thijs Nales and Robert Vander Poppen
Already in just a few
weeks of survey the field school students have begun to reveal
several features of the settlement. Erosion has played a significant
role in the landscape especially on the north and south sides
of the site, washing away any Etruscan remains that occupied
these slopes. To the east the situation is far different, with
evidence for a midden (trash dump) that may have been in use
for several centuries. There are also traces of an early settlement
that was phased out, as the Poggio Colla necropolis expanded.
In addition, to the southeast of the acropolis of Poggio Colla
there is evidence of two phases of habitation interrupted by
a hiatus during which approximately 30 centimeters of erosional
material was deposited atop the earlier floor level. In the weeks
to come we will concentrate on detailing the history of the settlement
along the western edge of the hill. The data will then be integrated
into a GIS (Geographic Information System) model that will allow
a reconstruction of both the geomorphological history of the
hilltop and a reconstruction of the extent and preservation of
the settlement.
Below:
students take core samples, sift for finds, and record data
Final
Report
Robert Vander Poppen, University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill
Thijs Nales, Bekker and de Graaf
This season at Poggio
Colla the normal schedule of excavation has been supplemented
by a program of archaeological survey. Over the course of the
season students and staff have participated in research that
is beginning to examine the long term history of the landscape
around Poggio Colla, and as a result to see the major effects
that later activity, both human and natural have had on the state
of preservation of the archaeological remains in the vicinity
of the arx. In many cases the effects of these processes have
been extreme.
Erosion and mass slope
movement have largely dislocated the soil of the northeast slope
of Poggio Colla where a number of major drainage gullies are
deeply incised in the hillside. As a result this area is nearly
completely a blank slate in terms of archaeological remains.
Here, artifacts are preserved within a major colluvial soil as
a jumbled mixture, instead of in their primary use contexts.
On the south side of the hill the picture is much the same with
a majority of the hillside almost devoid of soil. In the area
directly to the south of the arx, the reason for this lack of
deep depositional layers is the steepness of the slope coupled
with the historic deforestation of the zone associated with the
cultivation of chestnut trees.
Further to the west along
the saddle that connects Poggio Colla to the nearby hilltop of
Montesassi, archaeological remains are absent for a different
reason. Here extensive medieval and modern quarrying have nearly
completely removed any archaeological layers that would have
remained in antiquity. On the north side of the same saddle,
preservation is also intermittent, but it is possible to trace
the movement of material more clearly. Here the bulk of the Etruscan
material is found in a pair of areas that represent the major
water runoff valleys in the vicinity. It is possible that these
deposits, in some cases as thick as 2 meters, were intentional
middens placed strategically to fill in these once deep erosion
gullies. A similar situation appears to have occurred on the
east slope of Poggio Colla as well, where a core revealed yet
another midden from a glass bead was recovered.
In contrast to these
areas where preservation of Etruscan remains is less than ideal,
a number of zones have yielded spectacularly preserved soils
including floor and destruction levels. Particularly well preserved
is the area to the northwest of Poggio Colla, a zone dominated
by early settlement and the later necropolis. Preliminary study
of the material from this area suggests that at least a part
of the necropolis was being used as a habitation until the area
for burial was expanded in the Hellenistic era. Further down
the hill in this direction a coring revealed a pair of gravel
pavements. The thick and compact nature of one packing suggests
that it may be a preserved Etruscan road.
In addition two spots
have revealed the remains of structures. On the first terrace
below the summit of Poggio Colla, a floor level and possible
wall have come to light, while off the southeast side of the
hill a major destroyed structure of the Archaic Period came into
use again in the Hellenistic Period after substantial erosion
had buried the earlier site. Additionally, near the summit of
Montesassi the debris thrown down from the upper ridge at the
time of quarrying has preserved an intact occupation floor.
We have also learned
a great deal about the defenses of Poggio Colla as a result of
our topographic work. Beyond the circuit of fortification walls
that enclosed the arx the residents of Poggio Colla likely relied
on a series of natural scarps occurring in the local sandstone
as a means of protection. Evidence of this natural cliff has
been mapped on the south and east sides of Poggio Colla. Where
this scarp is unstable, absent, or otherwise unsuitable as a
natural defense it appears that the boundary was reinforced with
walling of polygonal masonry.
The coring survey has
also included the area surrounding the Hellenistic pottery production
workshop in the nearby Podere Funghi. Work here in conjunction
with a shovel test pit survey by Dr. Sara Bon-Harper has led
to the discovery of a large clay deposit to the south of the
structure. Surely, this clay source would have been of great
interest to the potters nearby, and the evidence is beginning
to suggest the existence of a vibrant community of small potting
establishments in this zone away from the arx perhaps because
of these very clays.
Further analysis of the
finds coupled with GIS plotting of the data collected in the
field will continue throughout the winter in order to produce
a more detailed history of these processes and to make some suggestions
about the nature of the zones of preserved archaeological material.
The coring survey will also resume next season and expand into
areas further from the hilltop itself.
Below:
Megan Burns, Betsy Mahoney, and Marlene Johnson help
Robert Vander Poppen take core samples in the Podere Funghi
From left:
Allison Lewis, Survey Consultant Thijs Nales, and Jessica Galeano
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